The present invention relates to a radio communications system in which a plurality of transceivers are located centrally in a node station on the one hand and a plurality of corresponding transceivers are located randomly in remote substations on the other to establish two-way radio links between the node station and substations.
The quality of the sub-to-node station radio link is determined by interference between adjacent substations and this intererence is quantitatively evaluated by the ratio of a signal which is transmitted from a desired substation and received at the main-lobe sensitivity of a node-station receiving parabolic antenna to a signal which is transmitted by an undesired substation and is usually received at a side-lobe sensitivity of the antenna. This desired-to-undesired (D/U) ratio is usually controlled to within a prescribed tolerable range. However, rainfalls cause different attenuation in the main-lobe and side-lobe transmission paths. In particular, if the desired and undesired substations are spaced apart a great distance, the main-lobe and side-lobe paths have a significantly different rainfall attentuation which can result in a deterioration of the D/U ratio.
According to prior art radio communications systems, a single frequency pair is assigned to the node station and all substations of the system and adjacent substations are usually spaced apart so that they subtend at the node station with a minimum azimuth angle of 90 to 120 degrees to satisfy the required D/U ratio. If an additional substation is to be located within this azimuth angle, the usual practice is to assign a different frequency pair to the additional radio links to maintain the D/U ratio within the required range. However, it is desired to increase the number of substations that can be accommodated within a given covering area.